William Sutherland's photos with the keyword: Russia

Created from a photograph of an icon of Our Lady of Kazan , circa 1970 in Sofrino, Russia. The original icon was created in Constantinople in the 13th century and brought to Russia shortly thereafter. When the Tatars captured Kazan in 1438 the icon disappeared. It was rediscovered under the ruins of a burnt down house in 1579 by a young girl Matrona who had received messages from the Virgin Mary. This icon has a lot in common with Fátima, Portugal. Consequently, with the expansion of wars and hardening of the already rigid and unyielding positions by world leaders that reject compromise and who have discarded the concept of mutually assured destruction (coined during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870), the 13 July 1917 Fatima message to Lucia – “ When you see a night illuminated by an unknown light, know that it is the great sign God gives you that He is going to punish the world… ” – remains relevant and fitting today. On 25 January 1938 an intense geomagnetic storm lit up the night sky all across Europe and could be seen as far south as Bermuda. A month later Hitler invaded Austria. Eight months later he invaded Poland and World War II was officially underway. On 11 May 2024 an intense geomagnetic storm (perhaps the most intense since record-keeping began in1932) lit up the skies across much of the world. Auroral displays could be seen all across the United States into Mexico, in the Bahamas, western Africa and as far south as Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina. Could this be history repeating itself with the greater intensity warning of an even greater conflagration that leads to nuclear war? Let’s hope world leaders rediscover reason and pursue peace if we are to remain a planet of the living. In the meantime, as the Blessed Mother has repeatedly implored through the ages – La Salette, France (1846), Lourdes, France (1858), Fátima, Portugal (1917), Medjugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina (1981), to name four such instances – we should pray for peace . And as we pray for peace Our Lady of Kazan can serve as a protector. Although we may not live to see that day when peoples and nations are reconciled to each other and live in peace, one day it will happen if humanity doesn’t first extinguish itself into extinction through nuclear war and consequent Armageddon.

Photo composition created from a photo of tanks taken in Moscow, USSR (now Russia) on 31 October 1991 in the aftermath of the Putsch and a statue at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, New Rochelle, NY on 3 August 2012. Tragically war has broken out, the consequence of zero sum politics and the failure to seek common ground and compromise. My prayers go out to the people of Ukraine and Russia who are the victims of this unnecessary conflict that threatens to plunge the planet into World War III if errors in judgment continue and a war that should have been avoided if only everyone had taken the time to sincerely understand the other.

Red Square, Moscow, Russia

Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia and Church of Kazan, Moscow, Russia

Larchmont, NY